"In Hothouse Kids, we traverse the country to meet gifted kids, prodigies, and "former" gifted kids, clarifying what early enrichment worked for them and what went too far, in stories both droll and tragic. Exploring the overhyped world of baby edutainment and "better baby" early education programs, Alissa Quart takes a hard look at the claims about educational toys and baby sign language. Taking readers inside the ever more elite world of IQ testing, she reveals the proliferation of new categories of giftedness, including "terrifyingly" and "severely" gifted, and examines the true value of such testing. Quart observes the pressure to excel so early in life, profiling the explosion of kid competitions - from Scrabble and chess to child preaching - as well as the prodigy hunters who search science and math fairs for teens to hire for Wall Street investment firms: the encounters are sometimes sparkling and sometimes gloomy. Looking at the professionalization of play, Hothouse Kids visits with kids who've been identified as prodigies, including a four-year-old painter whose works sell for $300,000 and an eight-year-old professional skateboarder who is backed by nine corporate sponsors. Surveying expert assessments of the necessary role of unstructured play in child development, Hothouse Kids delves into the disappearance of recess and the pitfalls of children's overstuffed schedules. Finally, Quart confronts the growing divide in opportunities for wealthy kids versus those from middle- and lower-income families, who are losing out as gifted programs at public schools are gutted."--BOOK JACKET.